Elementary School Visit

Elementary Visit –Mill City Museum- April 2014

Sculptor Barbara Bridges and the Mill City Museum are collaborating to create several art inquiry events. Bridges’ large sculptural work, “Ode to Gluten,” will be on display at Mill City Museum from April 4 -22 and is free and open to the public during regular museum hours.

Artist, Barbara Bridges’work was created to celebrate wheat’s history here and to engage viewers in a dialogue about wheat: about its past, present and future role in the American diet, as well as in shaping the political, economic and social development of our city, state and country. Consider where support for the arts in the Twin Cities would be without the legacy and philanthropy of wheat? What we are all asking, however, is, “What is happening to our wheat?”

This message is to invite you to visit the Mill City Museum during Ode’s residency. The Ode event will take one hour. Other activities will be open to the students as requested. Dr. Bridges has been a teacher for 40 years. Please see following. Your students will have a singular experience and meet the following Standards:

K-12 Standards AlignmentScience: STANDARD 4.4.4.2Microorganisms can get inside one’s body and they may keep it from working properly.

Social Studies : STANDARD 4.1.2.3 The needs of any society influence the technologies that are developed and how they are used.

Social Studies: 1.4.1.2.2. Historical Thinking Skills. Historical inquiry is a process in which multiple sources and different kinds of historical evidence are analyzed to draw conclusions about how and why things happened in the past.

The school will need to pay for 50% of the transportation costs. No other fees will be charged.

Who is Barbara Bridges? Why would a student want to work with her on this project?

The Art Teacher
Barbara’s teaching career began in Maine in 1976 where she was an art teacher. Since then she has expanded her sphere of influence to Mexico, the Caribbean and Minnesota. Barbara has partnered with various Minnesota

institutions such as the Minneapolis school district, the Minnesota online high school, Perpich Center, the Walker Art Center, the Mpls. Institute of Art, the Weisman Museum, and the Minnesota Museum of Art. The online discussion group ArtsNet Minnesota came out of those collaborations ArtsNet Minnesota currently boasts a membership of over 600 as well as a site that contains over 8,000 pages of material. http://www.artsconnected.org/artsnetmn/

Barbara has a passion for giving the gift of creativity back to her students. She believes, if motivated and informed, everyone can be creative.

General Mills is expecting a spectacular product and we are going to give it to them!

Among her proudest achievements were two Educator of the Year awards in 2008, from the Art Educators of Minnesota and the National Art Educators Association. Barbara also earned the Minnesota Higher Art Educator of the Year and The Minnesota Art Educator of the Year. She has also been named the Art Educator of Minnesota in 1998

The Artist
Barbara Bridges makes art from artist fabricated components in a variety of media and found power objects. She organizes the objects to create meaning and provoke discussions and reflection on a wide variety of social topics including sustainability (Ode to Gluten), living a considered life (Talking Chairs and Academia Nuts) and recovery (Reflection Pool).

She is a sculptor whose work is based in a variety of influences that are rooted in modern society, personal history and symbolic representation. “Onion/AKA Academia Nuts” was commissioned and lived at the MnSCU system offices for over a decade and focuses on communications and technology. Her next large public work, “Ode to Gluten”, will be unveiled at the Annual Art-A-Whirl Event in the NE Arts District of Minneapolis in the last weekend in May 2013. See http://bridgescreate.com to view described artworks.

The Professor
Barbara has been a professor for fifteen years at Bemidji State University and has contributed in a variety of ways.
Her appointment includes teaching Foundations of Education, Human Relations and Critical and Creative Thinking,
as well as serving as the architect of the unique DLiTE (Distributed Learning in Teacher Education)
– a hybrid online K-8 teacher licensure partnership program http://www.bemidjistate.edu/academics//dlite
and the FasTrack secondary initiative designed for previously degreed candidates who wish to teach high school. http://www.bemidjistate.edu/academics//dlite The combined programs serve 250 teacher licensure students average age 35, working, and place bound with children.

Although Barbara serves Bemidji as a general education specialist, she has been a powerful force in art education for many years. Barbara led a National Art Educators Fellows Institute at her home in Maine which included the President of the National and International Art Educators. http://www.bridgescreate.com/fellowsb/